Stick I've had jury duty for the last four days. I actually ended up on a jury, the second I've served on. We have now returned a verdict, so I am free to discuss the case. The defendent, Mr. Saucedo, was accused of striking a Mr. Meza on the head with what the judge initially described as a board. When he said “board,” I imagined a length of dimensional lumber—a solid piece of wood with the grain flowing lengthwise and sold by its cross-sectional dimensions, such as 2 X 4, 2 X 6, etc. The wood offered as People's Exhibit 3, though, turned out to be a strip of half-inch Baltic Birch plywood, about three inches wide by two feet long. After viewing it the judge, both lawyers and the witnesses started calling it a “a piece of wood” or a “stick.” "Piece of wood" is vague and clumsy. “Stick,” while more evocative of the size and weight of this particular piece than “board,” inaccurately suggests a small branch pulled from a tree. Plywood is not merely pulled from a tree. It is a laminated product manufactured by peeling sixteenth-inch thick slices of wood from around the trunk of a tree, and gluing them together in successive layers, alternating the grain for rigidity, to produce a laminated sheet which can be sold as a 4 X 8 foot or other standard size sheet. (Baltic Birch, as it happpens, is a European import, and is sold as a 5 X 5 sheet. It is usually used for constructing the sides of drawers.)

Nobody wants to get hit in the head with a 3 inch by 2 foot strip of half inch Baltic Birch laminate, but as the trial went along, I felt that we had to struggle to maintain our interest in a way that we wouldn't had there been a nice solid 2 X 4 involved.

More on the trial soon.  ¶ 8:52 AM